I have created a Novel Research Pinterest page for the science fiction novel I’m writing. This is a simple compilation of my thought process, research and scientific data consulted over the past several months.
It’s nothing fancy, I’m simply including links to articles or videos so that if anyone is interested in the direction and themes I’m exploring in this book, they can find them here.
I’ll be updating when I have the time, and dropping some excerpts over the next several weeks also. Hope everyone is enjoying the Summer weather. I feel I’m melting here on the eastern side of the u.s:)
This site has been a blogging diary more than anything. After much thought, I’ve decided that in order to get anywhere, I need to focus on one thing. Writing the book. I’ve got just over a year to do it.
I’ve missed blogging these past several months. Due to art and writing submissions to publishers and galleries, I changed my blog to resemble a website for less clutter and easier navigation.
Reorganizing the Blog
I have organized this blog by categories at the bottom of the Home/About page. There is no longer a Home page with the most current blog post. Some I have removed and made private to keep things cohesive and not just a barrage of random thoughts. I have also included a Search field in the top right corner if there is a particular subject or post you want to read.
Bringing It All Together: Narrowing the Focus
I enjoy exploring topics that are conventionally at odds with each other: Christianity, Science and Art. This combination is hard for most people to assimilate. I understand that.
I am extremely difficult to sell as a whole package. The world is shifting to extremes and I am a creative, open-minded moderate politically. Who also believes in Christ.
I have made a few other decisions which I’ll share at a later time if they work out. One is starting another private blog to delve into these themes and narratives for the book and organize them. I won’t be making this public until I’ve finished writing the book anyway.
I have written the first draft. Now I have to begin the hard work: finding the voice of the thing and rewriting it a second time. This is not going to be easy.
We must stay curious and adventurous, learning all we can in this journey of life. Be well beautiful people~
Over the summer I shared several ways we can move into a satisfying life which brings greater happiness and freedom. (I have so much more to share on this topic.) Sometimes this process can take years, other times only months or even days.
The first time I put these principles of unconventional living into action, it took about four years. But somehow the end result of those four years catapulted me 7000 miles across the Pacific Ocean to an island in the middle of nowhere.
This time however, it took one season and I’m not going 7000 miles away thank goodness! But the idea of breaking free from a nine-to-five job seemed unattainable. Then I started walking and praying in the park…
Those Sunshine Walks changed my life. No joke. After walking and talking with God through the summer months, and really embracing the idea of an unconventional approach to life, I have discovered a few things that have kept me from living a life more true to myself. I’ll share with you what has happened.
I have worked 21 years in the business/corporate world which consumed all of the best hours of my day. Everything I’ve ever been passionate about – writing, art, nonprofit work, reading, volunteering – I relegated to the fringes of my life. All these things would start and stop continually because invariably my 40 hour workload snuffed them out.
It wasn’t too bad when I was younger because I had the energy to halfway punt and fit everything into my schedule. But as I grew older I dropped more of the activities I cherished and reality sank in…
I was shackled to making a living – but not doing much living at all.
It’s impossible to dedicate yourself to something when it remains on the fringes of your life. What’s more, it’s near impossible to be successful at it. I thought to myself, either move it front-and-center if it means that much to you, or leave it as a mere offshoot among all the business of daily chores and career and be unhappy.
Forget that. Sometimes the heart just won’t let you betray yourself any longer.
During the course of the summer, walking gave me precious time to search my heart and I realized after some scary introspection that I had to let everything go. I had to let go of the fear of failure, the fear of others’ disapproval and the fear of going it alone. Men ambitiously forge their own path often; women not so much, though we’re getting better at it.
So I made the decision to do just that. Forge my own way. Of course God will be with me (who needs anything more?) And He’ll connect me with all the right people and opportunities to make this a successful venture.
I’ll be leaving the daily corporate grind to move a writing career front-and-center. I’ve given myself one year to establish a platform and make a living. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, but it’s work I will enjoy! If after a year I am not earning a living, I’ll seek something more in line with my values and interests: nonprofit, publishing/editing, arts, etc.
It’s just time to launch out and do what makes me happy. I believe that if I spend the majority of my day working hard at what I love, I can have more success than merely working for a living.
Finally, balance. We don’t appreciate enough the peace balance brings to our lives.
There’s nothing more damaging to a creative soul than having to work where there is no opportunity to create anything at all. It’s maddening, frustrating and ultimately depressing. It’s who we are, yet we’re given no opportunity to be who we are. It’s a recipe for sadness.
You see, everyone wants you to be what will make them happy, comfortable and less stressed. Then you get the stamp of approval. But you walk away unhappy and empty.
Not anymore.
This summer, God and I decided I’m not living for anyone else. Going to close that chapter right now.
If I think about it, I really was like Enoch, I “walked with God, and then I was not”. Haha. Not a lot of things that I thought I was. God pulled me out of my old unprofitable mindset that was killing me and brought me into His plan for my life. Spending time with God helps us find ourselves and ultimately, happiness.
Prayer is powerful. And God isn’t joking around. It’s taken longer for me but rushing is the worst thing I could’ve done, and I know God’s timing is perfect.
I have a few more months before finishing my current obligations – I wouldn’t feel right otherwise. But I’m super excited about the path ahead!
Here we go again. Distractions. Always the same, something not right about my position in front for the TV, or about the fact that I’m in the living room with the TV beckoning to me as I try and grind out a few words onto this digital paper. So many new words introduced to the English language in the last decade alone. Hard to keep up.
Jump up. Grab the dangerous wiry thing that the kitten is threatening to swallow which will surely get lodged somewhere in her intestinal tract if it’s not retrieved.
This is not easy.
The words are easy the thoughts too but not the composing. Not the broader picture of telling the story, laying it out, leaving mystery without being too vague and boring. Creating suspense or humor or whatever one tries to conjure up to help themselves believe they’re doing something important or productive with their time.
I have a lot of rust to get off. Shake it, scrape it, whatever it takes but get it out of the cogs. It’s holding everything up. The problem is not with starting. Not with me. At least not most of the time. It’s sticking with it. I have no time. Being a writer is a very glamorous thought; and deceptive. Anyone who writes is a writer. Same as anyone who talks is a talker or lies is a liar.
It’s always something. It’s hard to write if you don’t read much. Got no words, no understanding of descriptions apart from boring verbs. Something more is needed. Insight; shedding light on a thing. Oh forget it; a better way to communicate. Something better is needed.
It’s storming tonight. I hear, here, hare the rain pinging on the abandoned metal pipe vents of this nineteen-sixties home. Hoping the lights don’t go out. And that my cats aren’t tearing away at the furniture in the back room.
I just don’t want trouble period. Who does? I want mornings to sleep into. And coffee to leisurely wake up with on the porch.
I don’t cook now precisely because I am too tired and have no time. And though a woman may catch her game, she will certainly starve if she doesn’t take the time to roast it.
Let’s go get dessert; ice cream? No, actually just brush my teeth so I can go to bed. Why can’t teeth be like eardrums? I don’t have to brush my eardrums before bed. Albeit, I’m not sticking skittles into my ears to digest, never mind…
Perhaps I should keep the notebook near just in case a dream or sleep-thought is a good one and I need to wrap the butterfly net over it quickly in the dark before it gets away.
Sleeping is good. Still rusty and need to do something to shake the consequences of sedentary thought out of my ears and eyes and well, off my life. I just want to get up to feed the kittens. They are really hungry tonight. Ravenous is a better word I think. I should have used ravenous.
I should read more.
And the fact that my nose feels like a block of clay. It’s the middle of winter and it was 79 degrees yesterday and 30 something right now. So I just asked Siri to open the weather app.
Silence.
And she should be on standby listening to me so I don’t have to press the button each time. Or key or whatever. Dear Jesus. Fix her already.
I don’t know what to do next. And now I’m hungry. Anyway, I need a plan. Do I need to start thinking about what type of book I want to write?
Storyline
Characters
Plots
And foibles
I just don’t know
Still rusty.
I can think back on little sparks of ideas that seemed so good and I never wrote them down, never captured them or if I did, I don’t know where the slips of paper I scratched disappeared to. Perhaps buried or crushed or thrown away; lost forever. Those ideas and thoughts were in my mind; so vivid and true.
Now they are gone. Unbelievable.
And I’m hungry. Why didn’t I go to the grocery store last week. Oversight. Now I have to eat canned spaghetti sauce over cooked noodles. So bland and boring. But I’m hungry and didn’t go to the grocery store.
We can get overloaded with life’s daily duties and not realize how quickly our time here is passing. It’s as if our list of obligations dictate to us how and what our lives are going to be like every minute of the day. And we can be so tired by the end, that we flop into bed without another thought and hope to sleep through the night. (Sometimes if things are really stressful, even a good night’s sleep is difficult to achieve.)
We slumber through our days without realizing that God has a purpose for us. He has a purpose for you. We get what we focus on the most – ever heard that you veer your car in the direction your eyes are going? Same concept here. If we are only focused on getting the next thing on our list checked off, we are stifling our creative side, our own dreams and hopes. The time we spend getting to know and understand what God has called us to and just who we are in Christ is precious. It’s like spending dinner with your family around the table so everyone can talk and share about their day. It’s bonding time, learning about each other and growing together.
We also need time like this to reflect on God and on our own heart’s desire whether it is something creative like painting, or starting that business you’ve been dreaming about for years (if only you weren’t so busy) or turning your hobbies into something more profitable. How much more fulfilled would we be if we pursued and worked at what we loved to do the most?
There are many things that can set you on the path to a more happy and fulfilled life, and the foremost step to achieving this is spending the extra time to get to know God, His word, and who you are in Him. Searching His word and understanding that there’s so much more to life than just the daily grind is a great place to start. God should always be the place from which we branch out in anything – He is our firm foundation. Then we can add on His foundation with confidence.
“If God gives you something you can do, why in God’s name wouldn’t you do it?” -Stephen King
Think about this for a moment. All good things come from God. What has he given you that perhaps you have forgotten about? Something that you are good at doing but maybe you thought it was a small thing of no real significance. What small thing have you always enjoyed doing but you never have time to do it? Could it be that this is the gift God has given you? That this one small (or large) thing could be the key to changing your life and being happier for it?
So I hope you take some thought of these things and begin to think about how you can take control and not let you schedule dictate your life to you; but instead dedicate a portion of your time each day to learn and to reach out and pray God’s will in your life so you can begin to direct your focus on what He is calling you to do. Search your heart for what truly matters to you and don’t be afraid to begin pursuing it.
If you have questions or need direction on how to begin to make a change, don’t hesitate to contact me, leave a comment or reach out on social media like Linked In.
